Project detail

St. Paul’s School Upper School Library

Brooklandville, Maryland

The St. Paul’s School library is an addition to the existing Upper School building. The new building contains classrooms, a cyber cafe and offices as well as the upper school library. The 21st Century Learning environment showcases technological proficiency, student-centered teaching, and sustainability. The library is still a center for information retrieval, but that definition includes more than books. We like to call the new model an ‘information commons.’ Whether it’s books, computers, or another technology, students have access to information when they need it.

The school, spurred by board member and benefactor Dave Fisher, decided early on to make the building green.

Following the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) program, Hord Coplan Macht included several LEED categories in the building design. A number of the features are small and serve to help St. Paul’s School students understand the implications of operating and maintaining sustainable buildings. They will learn how they can utilize these innovations and walk away with a strong appreciation of how these design trends can greatly benefit the students of the 21st century.

St. Paul’s earned a LEED Gold certification for this project. The building’s energy performance is displayed in realtime on a dashboard in the lobby. It is webbased and can be viewed by clicking this link. Sustainable features include: ground source heat pumps, a green roof, a reflective roof, photovoltaic panels, occupancy sensors, and daylight sensors.